Nano-Manipulation

In our group, nanomanipulation signifies controlling measurements of physical sizes of nanoprobes by precise placing or moving the microscope tip over the probe and targeted, force-feedback supported manipulation of a probe by pick-and-drage-and-place of nano objects under visual and haptic control. To achieve this, existing gaps between data recording, image processing, 3D visualisation and virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) have to be closed in the given context. The NanoManipulator developed in interdisciplinary cooperation at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill constitutes a successful appraoch to this topic. Research in this area will not only take place in cooperation with other groups of the Informatics department, but also interdisciplinary cooperation with the Department of Physics. The NanoManipulator is a comfortable interface to the high-resolution low-temperature microscopes of Prof. Wiesendanger's group. The combination of NanoManipulator and UHV-STM (Ultra High Vacuum-Scanning Tunneling Microscope) will for the first time constitute the basis for automatic manipulation at the atomic scale, which is currently a worldwide goal.